About Me

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

What Kind Of Eater Are You?

Some of us can eat food and choose things that are healthy and find them pleasing to our taste buds; other folks find it hard to stomach fruits and vegetables.I’m somewhere in the middle.I normally choose the right foods but when I decide to have a cheat-day I go all out. Seriously. Not kidding.I would not recommend this at all.I am not one to just taste something, because if I taste it you might as well consider it gone, especially when I am stressed out! For this reason I really limit the amount of sweets that I eat and how often I eat them.

Our church offers a big "family" meal every Wednesday night before bible study. It is great and a wonderful time for all the families in our church to come together as one big family and eat yummy food and fellowship. I love going to socialize with friends and it’s easy because I don’t have to cook! Major points in my book as a busy mom! However it is not the most relaxing environment for me because I have two kids who like to be loud and not eat when it is actually time to sit down and eat;It’s sort of like going out to eat with a 1 yr old and 3 yr old by yourself during lunch hour in the galleria! Now, maybe most of you mamas can pull this off successfully but not me.Cameron wants to run all around with the other kids, which is fine, but sometimes he has a habit of being a little OCD.I can’t explain the tantrum unless you have seen it for yourself but it is embarrassing to say the least.Caroline will not sit properly in her chair.She likes to take her legs out of the strap, stand up in her seat, and talk loudly to everyone at the table. One day she'll be the star of all her dance recitals. I know it sounds like I ammaking my kids out to be heathens so let me just do my motherly-duty and say they are great kids and for the most part well-behaved, but in my mind at Wednesday night meals... they are monkeys hanging from tree limbs and everyone is looking at us. When I feel like every face in the place is staring at me my face gets hot, I start to sweat, and my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest!Even after I calm them down I still can’t think straight and I need to calm myself down. So, what do I do? I will sample all the desserts that are offered in the cafeteria!Let me rephrase that... I will eat an entire serving of each dessert they offer in the cafeteria!This is an issue.My downfall is sweets and for some reason I can’t always control how much of them I eat after I take just one bite.

One thing that work for me when I do feel stressed out and want to turn to sweets is to stop what I’m doing and take a deep breath so I can gather my thoughts.I try and think of why I am eating the entire pie and how will it make me feel afterwards. Now I am a normal person, just like you, and this does not work 100% of the time, but for the most part I can calm myself down and snap back into reality.

The next time you feel an emotion coming on that usually causes you to eat overwhelming amounts of food, STOP, BREATHE and ASSESS the situation.Think about why you are eating and how it will make you feel.No, it is not easy and it may take a hundred times before you actually can control the situation, but it will feel great when you finally do it.Be thankful that you can even recognize the situation because that means change is already beginning to occur.